Peace

Matthew 10:34-39, "Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man's enemies will be the members of his household. He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves sone or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it."

I was at lunch the other day with my Dad, and as his tradition he blessed the food. But in that prayer he asked God for peace. Immediately Matthew 10 came to mind, along with an understanding of what Jesus was teaching us.

Regardless of your beliefs; life has difficulties. As I write this I have a step-son in jail, 3 friends in epic struggles with cancer threatening their lives a too early an age. Another friend struggles with being left by his love. And I am sure you can come up with your own examples of peace robbing distress. These difficulties, these challenges are very much the sword Jesus describes. Luke called the sword "division." But this division that on the surface appears as turning family member against family member are really nothing more than God dividing our traditions, our teachings, our idea of religion from what is truly a living relationship with Him. Are you... are we... standing on a tradition taught to us because of the family we were born into? Or are we standing on a vivid relationship to the Father. If we are standing on a real relationship then by necessity of our soul and character we must have a life that confronts "healing doctrines." If we stand on relationship then by necessity we must have a soul changing life that confronts "prosperity doctrine," ministry doctrines, being saved by works, church attendance, tithing, sin and all other things that were meant to lead us to God and relationship; but that have been exploited and misused by "religion" and tradition. The division divides truth from fiction. The division is proving our soul, it is refining our soul's relationship to the father.

John 14:26-27, "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful."

Christ again reminds us that our peace is not going to be found in family, or suedo families like churches, local groups, or others at all. In those things there are too often traditions. Helpful as they are in leading to Christ, they are not Christ and we each must individually walk our own path. My cross is not your cross. My path is not your path. But if I seek God, if I faithfully step today where He says step, then I am listening to His teacher the Holy Spirit. Circumstances and the path may be scary as hell... but my soul has peace. In this we fulfill loosing our lives to find it for His sake.

Be blessed, and peace be with you.

It’s Not What You Do… It’s Who You Know

Matthew 7:21-23, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will says to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I NEVER KNEW YOU; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’”

I think that I could write another book based on Chapter 7 of Matthew, but today I choose to focus on just these 3 versus. And the reason is that with the Pope visiting the US today, I can’t help but look back in my life and look at the false importance I gave to Ministers and ministry. Too often I believed that a particular Pastor was closer to God than I could ever attain myself. Even in my own self-worth I valued casting out demons, and seeing God’s miracles of healing over my relationship to Him. I wanted to see the miracles, and if I am truthful wanted others to see the miracles so that I could judge myself, and be judged by man as being closer to God.

But man’s judgments… even our own judgments, do not count in our relationship to God. We cannot ask ourselves if our jobs have importance. We cannot count on our pious acts to afford us eternal life. On the contrary we must ask ourselves, do we know Him? Or perhaps we should ask, does He know us?

And so as the Pope visits attracting millions to his masses. As Catholics faint in his presence, I wonder aloud. Does Pope Francis know God? Does he have a relationship with Christ? Though truly the answer is none of my business as I do not follow him, I also wonder aloud, do I know Him?

To that question I have a resounding answer, YES!

What is your answer to the question of, do you know Him? Do you know God the Father? Do you know His Son?

If you cannot say without qualifier, “yes” then by all means look for someone who teaches knowing Christ.

Being Pope does not mean you know Christ. Being a convicted felon does not mean you do not know Christ. That is a question that can only be answered in your heart.

What I can tell you with certainty, is that if you want to know Him. If you will seek Him, you will find him. (Matt 7:7) Seek HIM!

The End Times

Psalm 125:1-2, “Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be shaken but endures forever. As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds His people both now and forevermore.”

There are a lot of good people in this world that believe we have hit the “end times.” People worried about a myth of “global warming.” Others afraid of the Mayan Calendar, and Planet X causing massive global floods. Others believe America is going to hell in a handbasket because of Gay Marriage, and liberals in control of the government media complex. Isis, Iran, radical Islam have many in fear, or looking for Christ return.

If these are your concerns, if these thoughts consume you… cause you to hoard food, ammo, or make survival plans, then I would challenge you to stop and reflect on your relationship to God. If you think a homosexual getting “married” has anything to do with your own salvation then turn inward. Examine your own heart, and call out to God for wisdom. Proverbs 2:6, “For the Lord Gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding.

To those who think global violence is a sign of Christ return, for those who “fear” the tribulation, I would remind you of Jesus’ own words. Matt 24:6, “You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are NOT frightened, for those things must take place, but THAT IS NOT YET THE END.”

For those worried about floods, either by Planet X of Global Warming… God will not be found a liar. Genesis 9:11, is as true today as it was the day He spoke it. “I establish My covenant with you; and all flesh shall never again be cut off by the water of the flood, neither shall there again be a flood destroy the earth.”

For those who think Gay Marriage is the end of America, please read John 8. Sin is sin is sin. There is no distinction between adultery, homosexuality, lying, or any other sin. And yet Christ said, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone…”

Have faith. Have faith that does not worry about predicting the future, but trust in God being in complete control of it. Believe what Paul wrote in Romans 8:28, “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God…”

Love God, and everything else will take care of itself.

Never forget Psalms 24:1, “The earth is the Lord’s, and all it contains, the world, and those who dwell in it.”

The end is not near, no nearer than it was a thousand years ago. Pursue God, love God, and you will be undeterred by these distraction. You will stand in confidence on your day of judgment.

Poverty is Curable

Matthew 26:11, “For you always have the poor with you; but you do not always have Me.”

I used to read this scripture in the light of pie economics. Pie economics being the world is a pie, and if someone has, then by necessity someone cannot. In other words, my slice of pie keeps you from having any. But once I realized that the world’s resources are not a pie, and nothing is ever used up, it is only moved I turned to inflation to argue that the poverty is incurable.

Inflation in its simplest form is too many dollars chasing after too many goods. So if we took a room full of people ½ poor, and ½ rich and after 12 hours with no food gave all the poor people $100, what would happened when someone brought a pizza in for sale? The richest man would buy the pizza for thousands, and sell off small bites for $100 each. And thus the rich get richer and the poor are once again poor, as inflation eats up what the poor man has. And so logically, in a finite world Jesus’ statement of always having poor stands correct.

Problem is that Jesus did not say that Poverty was incurable.

Reality is that no resource is exhaustible. It simply moves from one place to another, and the value of resource is nothing more than its recovery and transportation costs. I.e. water. We drink water, then we excrete water which goes to a treatment plant, to a stream, evaporating, making clouds and raining somewhere. Or the aluminum can… the aluminum is dug out of the ground, made into a can, that eventually ends up in a landfill… where one day it can be dug out of the ground again when the cost to recover raw aluminum is too great. Or oil even… pulled from the ground, refined, and ultimately burned where it is broken down into carbon and other elements that enter the atmosphere, and except for the extreme costs could be recollected and reconstituted into oil once again. And it is in this cycle that we see what wealth, and its antithesis poverty are about. Wealth is having resource move through your local, your hands at great velocity, versus poverty which is resources moving very slowly. We don’t get to keep anything… it just flows through us.

Velocity is the difference between wealth and poverty. And in such it is possible to increase the velocity so that anyone could become wealthy, and if not wealthy certainly with less lack.

And so Jesus was not saying poverty is incurable, but that we would “always have the poor with” us. He was saying that we will always have people in the condition of poverty. There will always be people on the earth are in positions of resource scarcity.

So how in a modern area where any person can be anywhere in a matter of hours, and at most days are there places, even in modern America can there be places where resources do not move with any velocity? How can people in the middle of metropolitan areas find themselves in a desert? Or how can people in the middle of a desert find themselves well satisfied?

The answer I believe is spiritual. Spiritual not in the since of blessing versus curse, but spiritual in the sense of where God chooses us to be. Because in an instant God can open up resources. In an instant He can change the velocity of resources (including money) that flows through your hands. What is important is not wealth or poverty, but in Christ there are wealthy and poor. What only matters is Him. We must have Christ whether poverty is cured or not. We must have Him whether we have resources or not.

Paul wrote, “To me, to live is Christ.”

And of this scripture T. Austin-Sparks wrote, “In the wilderness the whole of our natural life is brought out, and we come to know our weakness and emptiness; that we have nothing. Thus it is that we now find everything in Christ and so can go over and possess. What is the secret of possession, of coming into our inheritance? It is that we have come to the place where all things are "in Christ" and He is everything – our very Life and being. Our flesh is cut off and we know as the deepest thing in our being, that unless God does everything in us by His Spirit, all is of no value. We must come to an end of our own working in order to come into His fullness. It is so easy to sit down in our weakness and nurse ourselves, but the Lord says at that point, "Arise and possess." Your inheritance is not here on earth, it is in Christ in the heavenlies; not in yourselves, your fullness is in Him. It is ever His Fullness over against your emptiness; His Strength over against your weakness; your inheritance is all He is, as typified to Israel by the land flowing with milk and honey.”

Poverty is cured in Christ. But if in poverty, understand its blessing. To be emptied is to be given the opportunity to discover that we are nothing, and that Christ is everything. To cross through the wilderness is to be prepared in your soul, in your character for the inheritance.

Life Is Really Not That Hard

James 4:5-7, “You ask and you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: "He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us"? But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, "GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE." Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you."

I have such a wonderfully fresh perspective of this passage, though perhaps James can be read a little harshly. But what was going on in these followers was life. There were people bitching and complaining. Life was good for some, and for those that life was hard on they were jealous and envious. Truly nothing different from today, and truly nothing different from what has been in my heart in my own struggles.

Why me God?

Have you ever said that?

God I am in need, and look at that person over there… they have so much and don’t deserve it.

But it is God’s grace that He allows life to cause us to submit to Him. It is a miracle that we who want the world instead find turmoil that brings us to the very end of ourselves.

All we want is God’s blessings, and in turn get hardships… This hardship too is God’s blessing. It is compelling us to come face to face with our own inadequacies, and to bring ourselves into the submission of the Omnipotent God. When we allow life’s hardships to humble us we also find the grace of God.

When we find ourselves in these hardships the natural reaction is to try and get out of them as quickly as possible. But the spiritual action should be to submit to God, to get behind Him, to find out what is His next step. God cannot move us to the end or the hardship without us walking each and every step behind Him to the exit. We must complete what He has for us in the moment… we must seek first the kingdom of God in the moment, in the circumstance… then “all these things will be added to you.” (Matt 6:33)